Adventures in Breadmaking...Part 1

I am an avid follower of the down---to---earth blog and forum, so it didn't take much to convince me that a simple life requires reviving the practice of bread making at home. It is cheaper, it is tastier and it is healthier. I am a self-proclaimed convert!

Now, spending so long in India, I was taught by so many lovely women how to make chapatis, or Indian flat bread, to eat with curried vegetables (or meat too, if that's your thing). But this post isn't about making chapatis. However, I think I just talked myself into doing one on that subject too soon...

Today, I'll share a little bit about my recent attempts at making bread with Spelt Flour.

Spelt is a species of grain related to modern day wheat which was widely used by the Romans. It seems to be making a bit of a come-back as a healthy alternative to regular wheat bread. Having been using it at our Steiner school playgroup, I decided to give it a go at home as the taste is, quite simply put, wonderful.

When I was in Nottingham, I popped into the tourist information office and picked up a leaflet on a 3-minute spelt loaf recipe. Hmm, I thought. 3 minutes? Sounds too good to be true. I was wrong.

Here's the recipe they gave (in their words):

Three-Minute Spelt Bread

You can also leave the dough to rise slowly, in a cool place overnight. It will be even better.

1lb/2oz/500g Spelt Flour
2 sachets/10g fast-acting dried yeast
Half tsp salt
2oz/50g sunflower seeds
2oz/50g sesame seeds
2oz/50g linseeds (optional)
17floz/500ml warm water

1. Heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6

2. Combine all the ingredients, adding the water last. Mix well and turn the dough into a greased loaf tin.

3. Put straight into the oven and bake for an hour.

4.Remove the loaf, turn it out of the tin and the return it to the oven without the tin for a further 5-10 minutes.

Simple, isn't it?

Well, I looked at it and thought hang on - what about sugar for the yeast? Now I'm no expert, but I figured that the yeast might need it (or is it different with spelt flour and I just don't know?...). Anyway, I decided to do half these quantities shown above (to make a small loaf) and to add a few extras:

1 tsp honey (dissolved in the warm water)
1 tsp olive oil

I left out the seeds as I didn't have any!

I also used much less water as it made my dough extremely wet otherwise (I added more flour to compensate my over-wetting too) and I kneaded it for a few minutes. Ok, so it was maybe a 10 minute bread, but hey, it was worth it.

Finally, I only needed to cook it for around 30 or 40 minutes, maybe because it was half the quantity. It was brown and ready in that time. I guess you just have to be flexible and adjust things according to your conditions. I hear that different flours from different suppliers can act very differently, so just play around with it.

The result of my first spelt loaf, as can be seen above, was a slightly raised loaf (I was disappointed at first...), but with an amazing texture and nutty, distinctive taste. Really, it's a pleasure to eat. It's a bit dense, but soft and chewy. It's great with chutney, cheese and tomato, or simply hot with real butter. Yum, yum, yum.

I made another loaf today, using the same quantities but with a smaller loaf tin. It rose more, but tasted superb.

I'll be trying out some other flours and techniques and will share my findings here! If anyone has a bread recipe or story to share, please do!